cloud flexible workloads VMs: Azure B, AWS’s T2, GCP f1

Microsoft Azure gets a new VM family for bursty workloads | TechCrunch
"Microsoft argues that these so-called B-series machines, which are currently the lowest-cost Azure machines with flexible CPU usage, should work well for workloads like web servers, small databases and dev/test environments.

The principle behind these Azure B-series VMs is similar to AWS’s T2 instances in that they offer burstable performance and that you build up credits for the periods when you don’t need the full power of the virtual CPU. 

Google offers a similar machine type with its f1-micro and g1-small instances. This scheme of letting you bank credits as your machine idles (or only needs very little CPU power) means you end up saving money over using a traditional VM, but still get access to enough power when you need it."